Observing FDI spillover transmission channels: evidence from firms in Uganda

Abstract

We observe and analyse three intra-industry foreign direct investment (FDI) spillover transmission channels using unique firm-level data collected from on-site interviews and observations regarding domestic and foreign firms operating in Uganda in 2015. Our main results are: (1) the spillover effects mainly depend on the channel(s) by which they occur (the competition channel is most important while spillover benefits through the worker mobility and the imitation channels are less prevalent) and (2) both positive and negative spillover effects occur within the same channel and, moreover, effects differ by channel for the same case. These are novel and challenging findings that have not yet been recognised in theoretical and empirical research on FDI spillovers. Our results suggest that long-term pecuniary spillover effects are predominantly stimulated via the competition channel and show that only limited short-term and long-term technological spillover effects occur through the imitation and the movement of workers channels. These channels are not only less prevalent, but also appear to be constrained by competition-determined spillovers. We are confident that these directions for future research will have a high pay-off because, as shown by this exploratory fieldwork, a more complete picture of the spillover effects is reached when the channels are considered simultaneously.     

Developing a therapeutic environment for boys in secure settings who have sexually offended

Abstract

The role of secure units in helping sexually abusive adolescent boys to change their behaviour and attitudes is examined. The problems presented by 23 adolescent sex offenders at Glenthorne Youth Treatment Centre were used to identify issues for management and treatment. These boys had committed a variety of non-sexual offences, and were responsible for 691 recorded crimes. Many had committed violent offences and had emotional, educational, relationship and substance-abuse problems. In contrast to the situation in community settings, the use of offence-focused groupwork and individual psychological therapy is limited in secure units. Many of these boys are not suited to this kind of work, or are not yet ready to benefit from it. Secure units also have difficulty resourcing these types of intervention. Nevertheless, the secure unit environment can be organised and structured to effect changes in behaviours and attitudes associated with sexual offending. Attention should be given to particular aspects of residential practice, including anti-discriminatory practice, organisational values, establishing behavioural boundaries, challenging unacceptable behaviour and language, reinforcing appropriate behaviour, encouraging interpersonal problem-solving, providing effective supervision based on an evaluation of risk, and education to raise victim awareness and respect for others. Liaison with community programmes for sexually abusive adolescents should be encouraged.     

More Than Meets the Market? Landlord Agency in the Illinois Housing Choice Voucher Program

The federal Housing Choice Voucher Program currently serves as one of the nation's predominant strategies for providing affordable rental housing for low-income households. The program is designed around two goals: first, to uphold the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's mission to provide safe, decent, and affordable housing; and second, to facilitate household residential location choices, with the idea that such choices can leverage other types of nonhousing opportunities for assisted households. While scholarly research has described a range of positive and negative household outcomes associated with the voucher subsidy, less is known about how those outcomes are produced on the ground. This research describes findings from 72 in-depth interviews with Illinois landlords and other voucher program stakeholders regarding their experiences with the program, with the goal of linking landlord practices to tenant outcomes. Findings of this research underscore the substantial influence that landlords have on assisted-household residential location choice and tenure, and show the potential for voucher program design to more actively engage with landlords as providers of supports that extend beyond the housing unit.     

Synthetic Performance Indicators for Residential Housing Agencies

Many public administrations produce and distribute public services through a number of similar local autonomous organizations, or institutions, operating in different parts of the territory assigned to them under a centralized authority. Examples of this are the public residential housing institutions, the institutions for waste disposal, health care institutions, and education institutions. The problem arises regarding the evaluation of the performance of these local organizations and institutions not in absolute but in relative terms, in order to determine what incentives or sanctions should be meted out to them. This study presents the methodological problems, the data analysis, and the initial results of the method adopted by the Lombardy Region to create a system of performance indicators that will permit an automatic ranking of the Residential Housing Agencies in Lombardy （ALER） according to their performance, based on information from their balance sheets. A performance index was devised by rationally combining the results of three different analyses： position analysis, ranking analysis, and scoring analysis. The results allowed the central administration to： （1） motivate the managers of the local units through a system of performance-based incentives; （2） aggregate poorly performing local units or outsource inefficient functions; and （3） create competition among local units and raise overall performance levels.     

Mobility among Pentecostal pastors and migratory “miracles”

Taking into account space and identity in the movements of transnational religious actors, this article is engaged in reframing and reinterpreting experience by investigating the articulation of migratory and religious experiences as expressed by the pastors of four different Brussels-based Pentecostal congregations. The analysis of pastors' narratives, as they reassess the circumstances that brought them from Sub-Saharan Africa or Latin America to Belgium, reveals an interwoven process of geographical shifts and “divine” actions: this offers us an opportunity to consider an implied double process of mobility and religion. On the one hand, we can see how Pentecostalism transforms and subverts their immigrant experience by allowing for an alternate narrative of this experience. On the other hand, we can analyse the effect of the migratory experience on the discourse and religious practices in the new social context, more particularly through the identification of such “Children of God” with missionary duties towards their fellow immigrants. An analysis of the pastors' narratives also offers a particularly relevant opportunity to question the tensions between processes of endogenous identification (missionaries elected by God and working towards the extension of his “kingdom”) and exogenous assignment, repeated associations of otherness and strangeness, and the stigma coupled with pejorative characterizations of the “migrant”.     

商品房地下室权属法律问题研究

在人们住房空间极其紧张的情况下,《物权法》未对与商品房业主福祉关系密切的商品房地下室所有权做出明确判定,而人们对于物权的概念也存在一些误解,围绕其产生的许多纠纷也不断见诸报端。对商品房地下室中规划属于人防工程部分,一般认为属于国有,事实上,人防资产并不等同于国防资产,承认其非国有性并不影响其人防使用功能,简单地将其归为国有,不可避免地将置《人民防空国有资产管理规定》于违背宪法和立法法的尴尬境地,应根据谁投资,谁受益的原则确认其权利归属。其他部分地下室,依据地下室建设成本是否纳入销售价格,将其作为地下室权属判断标准,是使用经济学的观点来代替法律的推理,而将商品房地下室一概纳入商品房面积公摊范围是没有根据的,但对于已经纳入面积公摊范围的,应确认其业主共有权。     

Free and unfree labor in Qing China: Emigration and escape among the bannermen of northeast China, 1789–1909

Though internal migration in China during the Qing era (1644–1911) was mostly unrestricted, the government tightly controlled the movement of peasants who worked state lands in frontier regions and certain other locations. Such peasants accounted for 5–10% of China's population. In the state farms of northeast China, households could move legally only from one place to another within the system. Departure from the system was illegal. In this article, one of the first quantitative studies of migration in late imperial China, we apply discrete-time event-history methods to longitudinal, nominative household register data from six northeast Chinese state farm systems to compare how characteristics of the farm system, village, and household influenced the chances of legal moves and illegal departures. We show that among these state peasants, who were supposedly “unfree,” migration was not uncommon. We also show that the determinants of legal and illegal migration differed substantially. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of these findings for our understanding of migration processes in late imperial China.     

Digital humanities and the history of working women: a cascade

In this introduction to the special issue on ‘Women's work in changing labour markets’, we argue that a combination of digital advances, notably the digitization of individual- and contextual-level data, the creation of internationally comparable occupation-based classifications, and the development of statistical models allowing for contextually informed analysis, has brought us to the brink of new developments in the field of women's work. Census and vital registration data contain more information on occupations of women than previously thought, and when used in combination with other digitized sources they allow one to assess the possible under-registration of women's work, as illustrated by some of the contributions to this special issue. Other contributions show how standardizing occupation-based classifications allows for temporal and regional comparisons of women's work and makes it feasible to study how community or regional characteristics influence that work. None of these developments – large-scale digitization of individual-level data, standardization of occupational titles and measures of stratification, and contextually informed analyses – is completely new; in some cases they are actually rooted in a venerable research tradition. However, in combination they might well constitute a cascade in the history of working women.     

Research on the Residential Satisfaction with Public Housing——Evidence from Zhejiang

Public housing policies focus on the needs of low-income households. The level of residential satisfaction plays a key role in the assessment of government performance. This paper reviews researches on the residential satisfaction of inhabitants living in public houses and introduces relevant national practices. Based on data from Zhejiang, we found that the average residential satisfaction level is “relatively satisfactory” on the part of the inhabitants. They seem to be satisfied with the supply quantity but a little dissatisfied with the distribution fairness. The factor analysis suggests key factors that significantly affect the residential satisfaction. The study also shows that most inhabitants expect house quality improvement with big developers and are ready to accept the rising price for better quality.     

Opting for Openness: Capital Mobility and Monetary Sterilisation in Malaysia

Malaysia gained attention for its use of capital controls in 1998, but since the early 2000s it has emphasised its commitment to an open capital account, despite experiencing volatile capital flows. As well as opting for financial openness, Malaysia chose to manage the value of its exchange rate after de-pegging from the US dollar in 2005. In a bid to escape the macroeconomic constraints that arise from capital mobility, Malaysia also chose to sterilise a large portion of capital inflows. It then made a further choice to use market-based sterilisation instruments more than regulatory sterilisation measures. These choices have carried costs and led to a build-up of economic risk. Three interrelated factors explain these choices: Malaysia’s strategy to manage the stigma arising from its imposition of controls in 1998, the increased level of financial integration that followed from this strategy, and the politically privileged position of groups that have benefitted from Malaysia’s commitment to capital openness.